May 2, 2010

Samuel: Hello, dears. On this beautiful day, what did you do to make somebody’s day better and brighter?

I connected some old friends with a new friend and her new friend, and I believe a blessing will occur for all parties involved and for the creatures; I hope.

S: Lovely, lovely.

And I brought her a shirt that says, “Goddess.”

S: Always lovely, and the rest of you have been slackers, Jess and then Claudia.

I went out to cheer on a friend of mine who was running The Cincinnati Flying Pig Marathon.

S: Wait just a moment. It is a marathon for what?

It’s called The Flying Pig Marathon. There are no flying pigs that run the marathon.

S: Excellent.

And it took about forty-five minutes until my friend actually made it to the point that I was waiting for her so I got to cheer for all the people that ran by, and it was so much fun. I don’t want to run a marathon, but I’ve decided that every year I’m going to go cheer.

S: Lovely, lovely.

I saw my neighbor bringing buckets of water out of his house and dumping it into the driveway, so I offered to help him get water out of his house. He turned me down, but I offered and I think it made him feel better.

S: Absolutely, absolutely, aye.

I visited my father, who is very sick, and I think my presence there made his day better and brighter, but also my mom’s, and I think the other family members that stopped by. I hope that it made their day better and brighter.

S: Somebody’s got to, good, aye.

I made a chocolate mousse tart for tonight, and I let Rose Jewel lick the spatula.

S: And I guess many of you will have a better and brighter day after this meeting.

Although I would wish that it was not showing up quite as strongly as it is, I need to ask you to be sending stronger energy and keeping yourselves as empowered and together as you can for the next couple of weeks while this energy flow finishes out. It is a tough time in your world, and it’s looking like the humans are doing what they can to add to it, aye? So give, in the next couple of weeks, some extra energy for wholeness, balance, for yourself, for the world. That’s going to add to what is good, and that’s important, very important.

This is a night to talk about a couple of good holidays you have going on right now. What are they?

Beltane and Mother’s Day.

S: Beltane and Mother’s Day. Nice how one leads to the other isn’t it? And Beltane is . . .

. . . yesterday.

S: Depends upon which calendar you’re working on; a few days before that, at the moon, is another way of looking at it, or tonight is yet another. What is that about?

Fertility.

S: Fertility, that’s a piece of it, yes.

Fire festival.

S: It’s fire festival, yes, yes.

Consciously creating

S: Consciously creating, I like that, yes, yes. Stuart?

I was going to say it was the fire festival. And was a time when they put out the fire from the winter and started anew in Celtic tradition.

S: Fresh fire, passion, yes.

I was going to say passion.

S: Yes.

I think it was also a time when the prayers were put forward that the crops would grow and the harvest would be good so that the earth would give forth its bounty to sustain the people.

S: Excellent. Remember that those old tribes were farmers . . . the farmer in the dell . . . they were farmers and life revolved around food, hmm. And that hasn’t changed much through all this time. Life revolved around when to plant and when to harvest and when to store and when to help the fields become stronger and when to leave the fields alone, and on and on and on; a cycle related to life, all of it about life, sustaining life, creating life. And the festivals, times of celebration, just happened to be also times in which the community would come together. And as the community came together to plant or to harvest or to pick weeds and plant flowers—plant flowers and pick weeds; that’s what that should have been—it was about coming together.

And that leads to the other aspect of it that is a very important aspect of the holiday as well—because it has been a holiday that was an opportunity because the people came together—for couples to come together. And depending upon where you lived and depending upon how your belief structure fit into it—because that’s something that changed over time as well—it might be a time specifically intended for the God and the Goddess to come together in a ceremonial ritual of mating. And I think that for many—don’t like this word but I’ll say it anyway—new-agers, that’s what Beltane is all about. It’s the God and Goddess coming together. They go off while the fire is lit and play like bunnies until the fire is out.

Did you say bunnies or Bonnies?

S: Now that you’ve got new knees, you know, anything’s possible.

But no matter what time or belief structure you are looking through, Beltane is about coming together and creating relationships, be that relationship yours, with what you are planting, the plant with the planet, or your search for a mate. It is a time of passion, and that might be sexual passion, but it also might be the passion of friends coming together. It might also be the passion of enjoying what you are doing and experiencing your life to the fullest, and these are things that do not change. And, interestingly enough, for those of you who live where there are more than two seasons, hot and hotter, where you actually have a winter, and spring means, “Oh this is so great! Look, the sun is shining. Look, it’s warm out. Look, look at Mathew. He’s in shorts and short sleeves. Throw off the coat,” it’s also a time of delight and passion and enjoying great change from one thing or season or time of life to another.

You should be finding within your own life, that you also, to a certain extent, follow some of those natural patterns. Easy to say you see it when winter becomes spring, but do you not also see it when autumn becomes winter, your first snowfall and how much you enjoy that—maybe not the fifteenth one—how much you enjoy that and the beauty of it? It rains and makes ice and at least for a few hours, you enjoy the beauty of that ice-encased world; and of course summer and its glory, autumn and its winding down and beautiful colors.

You relate not only with your delight and physical sense of adapting to those seasons; in the spring you are starting to get moving again from your winter creep, in the summer you are much more active, in the autumn things are slowing down but you are preparing for what is to come, and then in the winter you tend to continue on, but go at a more slow pace. It’s a very natural way to live. It’s a way that you follow when you’re not caught up with a thousand and one things that you have to do that are going to take up every bit of your time and keep you from your most relaxed, natural self, because then you don’t know your natural self. Then you don’t know what your innate flow would be. Ideally though, you find yourself flowing with those seasons and not just with regard to the way your mental self works, also other ways. Anybody want to tell me how you see yourself adapting to seasonal change?

Activities that I do, food I eat.

S: Food you eat. Yes, yes, that changes definitely. Activities, can you give an example?

In summer and spring I am more outside doing things like walking . . .

S: Perfect, yes.

. . . enjoying planting, gardening. In winter it’s a lot of indoor activities.

S: Good, good.

I have found throughout my life that in the fall, I actually start eating more.

S: Preparing for hibernation?

Yes, getting that extra fat to make it through the winter. It happens every single fall.

S: Aye, and you just thought it was Thanksgiving. Aye.

I notice when the seasons are in transition, kind of like now, my body has to work a little harder to adapt, and so I know that when the seasons change, regardless of what season it is, that I need more rest during that time. At night I just need to plan another hour or so of sleep because my body seems to really need it to start adapting and winding up for the next season.

S: And doing that adapting is very important. Not doing it is what gets you in trouble.

There’s a time in late spring, early summer when I think it’s the locust trees, bloom. And it’s warm and the evenings are warm and that smell is just everywhere. It reminds me of when we were dating and it brings back all of those memories, and it’s time for falling in love again.

S: Lovely, lovely, and I’m going to stop with that one.

Allowing yourself to flow with nature brings you balance. It grounds you. What is your life like when you are not grounded and balanced? I’m hearing “Chaos!”

Depression.

S: Depression, yes.

Stress and anxiety.

S: Stress, anxiety.

Illness.

S: Illness.

Overwhelm.

S: Overwhelm, yes, yes.

Everybody around me starts misbehaving.

S: Everyone around you acts badly, because of course it’s not you.

You move to burn-out; absolutely the wrong use of a fire festival. You start burning out. And what’s the problem with that? All right, there are some really obvious problems, this one shouldn’t be hard. What’s the problem with that?

It makes me self-absorbed.

S: Yes.

Lots of problems with that.

S: Head of the class right there. Bottom line of it is, because it moves your focus from your heart to your head, and your head focuses on “me, me, me, me, me, me, me, you, you, you, you, you, you, you” on your own self. You shift out of “we” and you go into security mode, all about “me.” That is the biggest problem with burn-out, burn-out which is misdirected passion, passion without action . . .

He knows. Now do the “you, you, you, you, you . . . [child in the audience laughs] . . . you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you . . .”

Burn-out is a function of fear and it puts you in security mode. How is burn out a function of fear? Not hard, don’t dig deep for this.

When I have had burn-outs, it’s because I have tried to do too much, mostly because I think that I have to do them all, and so not discerning what I need to be choosing to be the most effective person that I can be.

S: Good.

And so it is a function of fear, because I fear that I am not doing enough, and end up doing the wrong things, a lot of wrong things instead of the right balance of the right things.

S: One reason might be because you are fearing that you’re not doing the right things. It might be that you’re fearing that you’re not getting the approval of the right people, it might be that you . . . and you can fill in the blank there. But you overdo. You over-schedule yourself. You over-involve yourself. You over-think what’s going on. Now there should have been several chuckles in here for that one, because the chuckles usually represent that you know that I am talking to you, and this is the biggest group of over-thinkers that I probably work with. What’s the problem with over-thinking?

No action, procrastination.

S: It can be a function of procrastination. It can be a way to not have to act.

It’s a function of control too. You can think about it from all the different angles, therefore I’m in control of the situation and nothing can take me by surprise.

S: Because usually it’s a controller who’s doing that. Over-thinking because you want to figure out every possible thing that might happen so that you will be able to deal with it at your best and highest. “What’s wrong with that?” But you’ve spent so much time, so much energy working all of that out, out of your moment, out of your now, that you have lost your power. It’s disempowering. And sometimes over thinking is because you are afraid of consequences if you do not do everything just perfectly. What’s the problem with that?

We can’t be perfect.

S: Say that again a little louder.

We can’t be perfect.

S: No matter how hard you try, it’s not going to come out perfectly, no matter what. “Hate that part.” Because if it did, you would not be useful here, would you? You would not be an example of getting back up and continuing on. You would not be an example of, “Look, bloody noses heal. Fall on your face when you must.” You would not be the hope for others, who are also not perfect.

One of the greatest—I’m looking for a word here—obstacles maybe; no, that’s not the one. One of the greatest difficulties that I see with regard to over-thinking, overburdened, and moving toward burn-out and all of the behaviors that come with those, tends to be with relationships, especially those relationships that involve intimacy, physical intimacy particularly. So much over-thinking, wanting to be perfect, all of the fears coming up, “What about, what about?” slipping out of the now, looking into the future, wondering about the past; or the other side of all of that when a relationship has gone on for a while and the fire burns out, the passion isn’t there, you’re functioning out of habit more than out of excitement and delight; not thinking about it, not looking to see how this can affect a greater whole, not being the other side, the other extreme, and yet still a part of the same thing, of that burn-out, of that extreme passion.

Now, is that the only choice in a relationship? You’ve got that tickly, delighted beginning or the dull, nobody’s-working-at-it end. Is that all there is? Well, look at your life and answer that. For those of you who are in intimate relationships, is that not the pattern? Is that not what typically happens? And the reason that it is is because without constant attention everything will fall into rote. And that’s true in your relationships.

One of the most important pieces of attention for an intimate relationship is a common vision. That’s also the most important piece that’s needed for any kind of relationship, intimate or not: a common vision. The idea is that you grow together in love. You can have the love, but without the growth, the relationship is doomed. That doesn’t mean that it will be over. It’s just continuing on, doomed, dead. And some of you know exactly what I’m talking about. You’ve been in those relationships in which everyone’s home but no one’s there. Is that what you want to tell the world is possible? “This is the best it gets. This is all there is.” You can have the love, but without the growth there’s nothing there. The growing together is what keeps it alive.

Now, this is going to seem like a startling leap, but it really is going to put together in here . . . which leads me to the next holiday of this month, and that is Mother’s Day. Mother’s Day is a day that is theoretically about gratitude to your mother for being in your life, right?

[Child’s makes a squeal.] Owen says yeah.

S:  And there are things that I have said over and over and over about Mother’s Day. One of them is, remember that you are all mothers. It doesn’t matter what your gender is, you are all mothers because you are all creative beings, because you all have access to what might traditionally be thought of as mothering behaviors. And what are mothering behaviors?

Nurturing.

S: Nurturing, ideally.

Encouraging.

S: Encouraging, good.

Care-giving.

S: Care-giving, yes, good, unconditionally loving, hopefully, lots of nagging, a good amount of disciplining, constantly on your case, right?

Guilt, using guilt.

S: Manipulative.

To sacrifice.

S: Sacrificing, teaching. These are qualities that you also hold, whether you have given birth, whether you are even female. You too are a mother, and I do hope that you celebrate those aspects of yourself at that coming holiday.

I’ve also talked about, with regard to Mother’s Day, the importance of goddess energy in your life, that the Mother is the goddess, and your ability to become that goddess enriches your life and enriches this world. I’ve also talked about gratitude. It’s a holiday about saying thank you. I like any holiday that’s about saying thank you. I think it’s one of your few that isn’t related to food, is it, but is related to flowers, is that it?

But with this regard, I want to talk about a mother’s passion and about the kind of relationship that you can have with a mother.

Beltane is about passion and fire and new beginnings and new creation. It is about the God and the Goddess coming together. It is about preparing the way for that which is to come. Do you see how that is also mother? The relationship that a mother has to passion goes further than the passion that brought about the motherhood. Those of you who are mothers, what are the kinds of passion that you have expressed? I’ll give you a for-instance: how about occasionally a mother gets angry? That’s passion. What else?

The mother-bear protectiveness.

S: The protective mother, passionate about taking care of those cubs, keeping them safe. Very good, very good.

Joy.

S: Joyful, happy, laughing, delighted passion.

Hurting for your child when they are hurting.

S: Sad, aching, sorrowful, and yes that is, or can be, a passion.

Sacrificing in many ways.

S: Yes, yes, and what you’re going to start hearing are the qualities that are mother, are the qualities that passion is expressed through. Now, that can pretty much be true for most anything going on in your life. Whatever role you are playing at the moment, the stereotypic behaviors that go with it can be activities of great passion, but there are few relationships in your life in which the passion defines the relationship as it does with your mother; you, as a mother, and your child, or you toward your mother as a child. Few relationships have that much passion in nearly every aspect of it because your relationship with your mother—and no, she does not have to be alive for this to fit—your relationship with your mother—and I’m going to expand that to those with whom you have a mother role—is different than any other relationship. And depending upon the nature of the passion that your mother most comfortably expressed, you are likely going to see that that tends to define the relationship even now. If the passion your mother tended to express was one of pretty regular anger, you are still dealing with that anger.

Those relationships in your life in which you are functioning as a mother need to be very carefully looked at, because it is so easy to fall into that role. For Guardians who are here to bring love into this world, it can very easily fall into a mother-child relationship, which is not good, rather than an adult-adult relationship, because your first lesson about love came with all the trappings of mother. In your intimate relationships, you might find that you tend to mother rather than be an equal power. You might find that you treat others that you are in relationships with as if they are children and you are there to teach them how to be good adults. That’s my job. And you are there to teach them how to function in the world, and you’re not—well, hopefully you’re not. And as long as you inappropriately express motherhood in your life, then you are going to be surrounded by angry children in your life. You’re going to have relationships with irritable and probably not very happy children, significant others who act out and create attention-getting behaviors, so that you can go in and save the day. It’s a dangerous habit that Guardians fall into too easily, because the passion of a mother is very different than the passion of a lover, very different than the passion of a co-worker and most any other relationship that you have.

Gratitude for the mother in your life might need to involve forgiveness for wholeness in your life. Children choose the parents, floating around in—I don’t know, what is it that this culture likes to picture pre-birth souls as?—kind of floating around in heaven or something, looking out saying, “I think they’d be good.” The children choose the parents.

So if you want the quick way into helping that relationship move into wholeness, stop focusing on having to forgive your mother for being such a pain in the knees. (That was for you, Bonnie.) You’re missing the point. Forgive yourself. Forgive yourself. And there’s a lot of things that forgiveness might be needed for. Do you want to tell me a few or do you want me to tell you?

Well, I don’t recommend that you forgive yourself for choosing them/her, because you made that choice perfectly. Forgive yourself for being unable to see why you made that choice, if that’s the case. Forgive yourself for misunderstanding how a mother-child relationship should function. Forgive yourself for not appreciating, honoring, loving, for fearing. Forgive yourself for needing to understand, because that one will get you into trouble most of the time. Forgiveness opens the door to wholeness. In every relationship of your life, there are times that you take on the role of mother and it’s perfectly right to do, but I would like to ask you this month to take a good look at your relationships and determine if that role is appropriate, and if it’s not, let it go.

One of my favorite aspects of mother is creativity, because Mother Energy is Creative Force. Of course being a mother requires constant creativity, doesn’t it? But to bring out the mother or the best of the mother in you this month, strive to be more creative, to pull out your creative energy, to pull out your creator energy. Let yourself try something new. Let yourself play. Let yourself have some time that doesn’t involve “What will my mate think of me? What will my boss, my neighbor, think of me?” Play with abandon, not caring, because that involves your creativity. And the most important thing that mother brings into the world is unconditional love. This month do your best to practice unconditional love. “Samuel, how do you practice that? Because it is something that’s sort of out of the grasp of most humans, isn’t it?” How do you practice unconditional love . . . anyone?

Sometimes I just turn my head.

S: This can be unconditional love, not seeing something, not getting involved in it, not falling into the old patterns, not hearing something said harshly, not seeing something that you shouldn’t have seen. More.

Not reacting.

S: Not reacting. Big, big “aye.”

Hearing as Source hears, seeing as Source sees.

S: Choosing to see through the eyes of Source, to hear, to speak, to love as Source does, yes. It is an act of will until it is your most natural behavior. You love unconditionally most easily if you were loved unconditionally. Every one of you have had the experience in your life of unconditional love. It may not have been from your mother, but you know unconditional love. Feed that and let it expand until it flows out of you.

This month has a lot to do with relationships in so many guises, but I’m asking you to focus on that relationship with the power of Mother, and that includes learning how to express unconditional love. It has been said that it’s the mothers who change the world, and that’s true in a whole lot of ways. Talking on a spiritual level, it’s absolutely true. It is your function as the Great Mother that brought you here to begin with, to help this world grow into its potential. And it is your role as mother that keeps you here. So explore that role and raise it to its best.

And if you have a true family mother in your life, look to see what you can do to enhance that relationship, to make it better. And do not forget to look at the many relationships in your life when your being the mother is inappropriate, and remember to get those out of your life. It’s an important month in so many ways.

Glochanumora.